A Chance to Dream

by Lynne Connolly

He smiled at her pleasure. “I’m glad you like it. Come inside.” He led her up the steps to the front door, standing open to receive them. Inside only one manservant waited, and he was not in livery. He bowed. “Welcome to Richmond, ma’am.”

  “Thank you.” Violetta looked around her. The floor of the hall was tiled in black and white and a light staircase arched up to the upper floors a few steps away. To the right a door stood open to a large, airy parlour, furnished in light fabrics. The door to the left of her was closed.

  “May I show you to your room, ma’am?” Violetta, who had learned to expect a certain superior tone from Orlando’s servants, heard no censure in the man’s voice, saw nothing in his face except bland acceptance. She followed him upstairs, hearing Orlando’s quiet footsteps on the stairs behind her. Looking down she saw a man bringing in their luggage. There wasn’t a great deal of it.

  Two servants. Orlando followed her glance. “Two menservants, a cook and a chambermaid,” he informed her. “There are usually more, but not for this visit.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him why so few servants, but she waited. Some discretion should be employed. The man took them into a room and bowed. Violetta kept her eyes trained on the servant until Orlando dismissed him. Then she turned.

  The room was dominated, as a bedroom should be, by the bed. Of light wood, with filmy cream coloured draperies, and a marquetry pattern at its head. The large sash windows were open, and a welcome breeze flowed through the room. Underfoot a large carpet cushioned her feet.

  “Well?” His voice, deep and resonant, made her start.

  “I’m sorry. I was lost in a dream.”

  “A good one, I hope.” He came forward and took both her hands in his. It was the first time they had touched, skin to skin, all day. “Will you take a bolt back to town? Or will you stay here with me?”

  “I made my decision last night. We have this time.”

  He drew her closer. “Then we must make the most of it.” Only in his arms, with his mouth on hers did Violetta feel truly at peace, a strange way to describe the surging excitement she felt. It was the truth. Peace and excitement, at the same time. She gave up wondering and gave herself to his kiss. He broke away and his gaze roamed her face. He cupped her chin in one hand. “I tried to make this as discreet as I could. I knew you’d want it that way.”

  Overcome at his consideration she lowered her eyelids.

  “No,” he whispered. “Let me look at you.”

  “Haven’t you seen enough of me?”

  His smile caught at her heart. “Never. When I saw you during daylight it was with that dreadful wig, and those spectacles that dimmed the beauty of your eyes. Were they tinted?”

  “A little.” She looked up with a smile and received a gentle kiss for her reward.

  “Thank you for coming. I have to be in Town next Wednesday for the journey to Ripley Court.”

  “Then that is all the time we have.”

  “No!” His denial was violent. “Please Violetta, please don’t put a limit on our relationship. I don’t know what is to come and neither do you.”

  She accepted that. The shadow in her mind receded. For the present. Here, in this sun-filled room it seemed impossible to think of sad things. Gladly Violetta leaned forward into his arms and gave him the full, open-mouthed kiss they both needed. He caressed her inside her mouth with his tongue, outside her body with his hands before pulling back with a gasp. “Very ungentlemanly, to fall on you as soon as the door is closed on us. Would you like some refreshments? To go for a walk, perhaps?”

  “Only as far as the bed.”

  “Oh God, Violetta!” Giving up all pretence at restraint, he led her to the bed and they fell on it together. Her side hoops collapsed underneath her and she felt her skirts rise above her knees. He knelt up, tearing off his coat, pulling at the buttons of his waistcoat. She fumbled with the hooks fastening her gown down the front, but before she could undo more than two or three, he was on her, pushing her skirts away, pulling her on top of him. Their lips met in a long, deep kiss.

  Their first mating was undignified, performed as it was in the midst of a pile of discarded clothes, but his deep thrust into her welcoming body was what they needed. Together again, no masks, minds and bodies merged, Violetta at last felt complete again. She felt his frantic need to take her, arched her back and pushed her body up to meet his violent, hard drives deep into the heart of her, crying out when her climax came without worrying about who was listening to them, who might gossip. He stiffened above her and with one final push, released his essence into her, deep inside. Then he fell to one side, bonelessly rolling over her but never letting go.

  They couldn’t get her hoops off. The tapes had tangled themselves in a knot, so they gave up and when he gave a final sigh and leaned up to view her, the hoops had collapsed either side of her. She giggled. “They’ll never be the same again.”

  “Neither will my breeches.” He picked up the offending garment and threw it on the floor. They had torn the breeches at the front flap and at the knee. They laughed together.

  Neither was completely naked. Violetta still wore her shift, and her stays hung off her upper body by its loosened tapes. He still wore his shirt. He sat back on his haunches, still panting from his efforts and gazed at her. Violetta stared at him. She had never seen him more open, more—content. She sat up and began on her laces, but he laughed at her. “Completely knotted. Wait.” Climbing off the bed he found his discarded coat and rummaged in the pockets. “Ah, here we are.” He returned with a small, but wicked looking knife.

  “What are you doing with that?”

  He hefted the weapon in one hand. “Hold still.” She did as she was told and felt the tapes release when he cut them.

  “Now how am I to return to London with any semblance of propriety?”

  “Perhaps I won’t let you return after all. Perhaps I’ll keep you here.”

  She knew he wasn’t serious and laughed with him. His face turned grave and he came back down to her, tossing the knife on the floor. It landed with a dull thud. “There’s nothing I’d like better.” He kissed her, long and slow. She turned to him willingly, disposing of the side hoops with a twist and a shove. The floor must be littered with cast off clothing. Drawing her into his arms he settled them both. There was no need for covers, it was a warm day and they had done a good amount to make it warmer. Violetta felt completely content. “Tell me about your childhood,” he asked. “I can’t make sense of some of it. Meeting my mother at your house came as a complete shock.”

  She lifted her chin to meet his eyes. “If you tell me about yours.”

  He grinned. “You must know most of it. It’s been in all the scandal sheets. To be truthful I don’t remember much of it. Taversall is, in effect, my father. He brought me up, taught me right from wrong. As well it wasn’t my blood father. He was a wastrel, a rake and a gambler. My mother married him after old Rosington died. My brother Daniel’s inheritance was carefully secured so Blyth couldn’t touch it. When he discovered that, Blyth turned on Mama. She had little of her own. Her portion from Rosington was lost when she remarried, apart from a small annuity.” He paused, biting his lip.

  Violetta knew hardly anyone had heard the story from him before. The recitation sounded fresh, unrehearsed, and she could see how it affected him to remember. This was something he’d locked away. She became aware of the depth of his feeling for her, that he should choose to tell her. It had to be transient. This couldn’t last, it mustn’t. Fear clutched at her heart, but she pushed it away.

  “He hurt her,” he said. “My father beat my mother.”

  A bond between their mothers. Both had known what it was to be at the mercy of an abusive man. “How did he die?”

  “He was killed in a duel over some woman or other. Not my mother, thank God. At least she was spared that disgrace. It’s one of my earliest memories. So clear, it could have been yesterday. I found her. Before he’d left for the duel,
he’d beaten her to within an inch of her life. The baby, Perdita, was wailing to be fed, and the sound drew me. She wouldn’t have let Perdita go hungry if she could have done anything about it.”

  “I’m sorry. Don’t say any more.”

  She laid a hand on his chest. He covered it with his own. “I want to tell you. I’ve never told anyone else. It’s time I told someone.” He paused, swallowed. “I was five years old. Daniel had been taken away by his guardians and sent to school, but they had no jurisdiction over Perdita and me, much as they would have liked to help. I found the gun case. My father had a pair. I took the one left, primed and loaded it. I had every intention of shooting him when he returned. I fetched help for my mother from a neighbour, and the man came to tell us my father was dead.”

  “Oh, Orlando, I’m so sorry!”

  He turned and forced a smile. “That was the start of the improvement in our lives. To be honest, I remember little of that time, between my father’s death and my mother’s remarriage. I seem to have blocked that time out. Too painful, I suppose. We managed until Taversall came into our lives. Or rather, returned. He’d been abroad, on diplomatic business. When he heard my mother was a widow he came courting. After that, he took control. He treated Perdita and me as though we were his own. I’ll always be grateful to him.” He stroked her hand, touching the fingers, each one, with fastidious care.

  “Why didn’t he give you some money, help you to re-establish your fortune?”

  He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I wouldn’t let him. I would have let him help Perdita, but she refused, too. We do it together, she said. Besides, he couldn’t give me enough to restore the Blyth estate, only to ensure Perdita and I didn’t starve. It wasn’t right to remain on his charity once we became adults.”

  “You developed your fortune into what you have now.”

  “So I did.”

  She leaned up on one elbow, shoving the resulting heavy fall of hair back behind her ears. “I think I can add something to that.”

  He gazed at her. “How?”

  “You know my mother knows your mother.”

  “I wondered about that. How it happened, why they are friends.” He lifted a hand and stroked her hair, his eyes the softened blue of the sea on a clear day.

  “Are you sure you want me to tell you?”

  He lay quietly, gazing at her with a grave expression that told her he understood. He nodded.

  “It was when your father died. Your mother was desperate, completely without friends or family and badly injured. She knew my mother from school. I went to the same school, in France, much later. When Blyth died I was the same age as you, but I remember. My mother took your mother in. It’s how your mother knows the older servants so well, why she knows the house. She is welcomed there as a member of the family. I call her Aunt Virginia.”

  His eyes widened. “Why don’t I remember any of that?”

  “I don’t know. You lived with us for a short while, but Mama says you were stunned with shock. Do you remember anything of it?”

  “No,” he said slowly. “Have I met you before?”

  “Yes. Briefly.” Her memory of a small, confused weeping boy sometimes filled her dreams. “My mother nursed your mama until Taversall returned from abroad for her.” She hesitated, biting her lip. Perhaps she should not tell him everything.

  “What is it?” He smoothed her hair. “Tell me. I won’t tell anyone else.”

  “I know. It’s something about your mother.” She took a sudden decision and hoped it was the right one. “I used to hide and spy on people when I was little. Not a pleasant trait, I know. Your mother said she wanted to enter my mother’s profession. My mother dissuaded her. Your mother was tired of marriage, tired of being dependent on others and penniless. Blyth had spent all her inheritance. My mother reminded her she had two sons, and their good name would depend on hers.”

  “Then why did your mother do what she did?”

  “She had no choice. No money, no—family and her only friends in England were in no case to help her. She had me to care for, and no way of earning, but she did her best to disguise me so no one would recognize me in public. She wouldn’t take money from Lord Ripley. She borrowed from him and paid it all back. Every penny.”

  That startled him. “Good Lord! I thought—I thought—”

  “You thought he was her keeper since she arrived in England.” Her lips firmed. “Everyone does. He is not, nor has he ever been. She has always been financially independent of him, even his loan was notarised. She loved him too much ever to take money from him. Other men, yes, that was a business arrangement, but not Ripley, never Ripley.”

  “Forgive me.” He bent and kissed her lips, lingering a little as he withdrew. “I begin to understand.”

  It was worth it, after all. “Then you see why I can’t take money from you? Or expensive gifts?”

  “I think so.” His look sharpened. “But that only applies if—” He stopped, stilled his gentle caresses and waited for her.

  The very breeze seemed to stop. It was time. To refuse this would be to declare herself an emotional coward, afraid to take the final step into intimacy, give herself to him in every way that mattered. But she was afraid of tearing down her masks, revealing herself completely to him. “Yes. I love you, Orlando. I could never accept money from the man I love.”

  “Oh, love!” He drew her close and gave up all attempt at tenderness, kissing her with a passion and urgency that took all her breath. His mouth still on hers he rolled her over and entered her with one sure thrust, and only then did he release her lips. “I love you too. I told you at the worst time, but I meant it.”

  Violetta bent her knees to aid his penetration. Feeling him probe deep within her, she knew this was right, felt it deep in her bones. He gasped, and stilled within her. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” She opened her eyes and gazed up at him. His eyes were filled with a blazing intensity, an affirmation of his words. “It was why I was reluctant. I couldn’t bear to be just another of your—conquests!”

  She broke off with a cry as he pushed deep, so deep she felt him throb, deep in his groin where they pressed closely to each other. A single throb, before he pushed again. “Sweetheart, it’s enough. You’ve conquered me just as I conquered you. Together now.”

  “Oh yes!” Her agreement was more than encouragement. It was affirmation, and joyous acceptance.

  Together they strove; together they clung until the glorious swell within her made her release everything else. She lost her breath when it surged hotly, making her one with him, one with the universe. Just for a brief moment, but it was enough. She subsided onto the rumpled sheets and opened her eyes.

  Orlando watched her with love, passion still driving him to strive, push inside her to achieve his release. She did all she could to help, feeling her wetness ease his passage, to find another unexpected surge. This time he cried out, and she felt that pulse, several deep throbs low on her groin until he jerked within her and fell across her glowing body.

  She held him, panting for breath, but unwilling to let him go. With a small sound he rolled, but kept her with him, his body still locked with hers. He opened his eyes.

  Violetta looked back. He hid nothing. No one had looked at her in that way, a mixture of love and passion, protection and desire. She blinked slowly, but when she opened her eyes he was still gazing at her in the same way.

  She lifted a hand to his cheek to have it clasped in his. “So we’re in love,” he murmured. “I knew it wasn’t all on my side.”

  “I tried not to. I don’t seem to be able to help myself. It’s not the end of the world,” she added, trying for consolation. For she knew this was hopeless.

  “It’s the beginning, not the end,” he murmured. His eyes closed, and he drew her close. Violetta was content. She fell asleep while she was trying to memorize the feeling, to revisit in the lonelier times ahead.

  The following day, they got up for long eno
ugh to eat. Violetta felt odd in a gown without a supporting hoop, but Orlando said he liked it. The meal was simple, none of the elaborate courses usually served in great houses, and they sat next to each other at the small table in the elegant dining room and served themselves.

  Violetta wanted it never to end, but at the back of her mind, however hard she tried, she knew it must. She strove to remember every moment, to relive in her mind when she was once more alone. She would not waste this time.

  On the following Monday they went for a walk. The countryside around Richmond was lush and green, small brooks wending their way across the fields. Walking hand in hand with him made Violetta wish it could always be like this. Then he articulated it too. “Shall we stay here? Never, ever go back?”

  “What a thought!” she exclaimed, but she could not keep the yearning from her eyes. She looked away. “It would be pleasant.”

  “Pleasant!” He sounded amused. She looked back to see the breathtaking smile she was reluctantly becoming accustomed to. “It’s what I want more than anything else. This year seems to be a momentous one for me.”

  From his tone she realized he meant more than this. “How so?”

  He swung her hand. “I’ve made enough capital to achieve my true aim. I’ve decided to put the land back into full use. That’s the heart of it all, Violetta. It’s all been for that. I had to restore the house in the country and in town, to maintain the façade of respectability when I was restoring the fortune. Nothing scares investors off like indications of poverty and scandal. Now I can restore the estate to what it was in my grandfather’s time. Or better. It means spending less time in London, although I’ll have to oversee the investments there and attend Parliament from time to time.”

  “You’ll be what you should have been all along.” In his country clothes, his dark hair tied back simply in a queue, he looked the part. Violetta swallowed. She would have no part in his life. He needed to marry and beget heirs. She knew she couldn’t do that. Although she no longer regretted losing her maidenhead to him, she could see no way of their ever being together as she wished.